The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1887-03-12
signers can DO, We see this very plainly

of our exports are made up Of protected
articles. Unprotected manufactures sup
ply the home market, and send abroad four
times rs much value as the protected. II
II were not for protection, capital would
seek business which could enter the worlds
markets. Our protected industries can
make n'slx months, years supply. Hence
many of them shut down to keep up prices,
They use the very fact that they are idle to
prove that they are not protected enough.
They deceive the public in regard TO the
wages which they pay by leaving out the
time when they are shut down To keep up
prices. They limit production to create ar
titicial scarcity rather than natural cheap
ness.
Sixth, protection is not the reason uhy
cages are higher in America than elseachere'
Cheap land and sparse population are the
chief reasons for high wages. Cheap mo-
ney is also largely responsible for this.
Our deprecated dollar will not buy as
much as Its nominal equivalent will buy
abroad. Rates of interest are also higher
with us than in Europe-is this fact due to
tariff?
Protectionists quote the low wages of the
period from '46 to 'G2 as q proof that low
tariff produces low wages. They do not
state the fact that there never has been In
all our history period in which our man.
ufactures developed as rapidly as In that
same period. They do not tell us anything
about the wages from 1885 to 1916, where
high tariff was In operation. The fact
is that wages have nominally risen with
the growth and expansion of the country.
They were higher in the decade following
than IN the decade preceding 1916 The
tariff has had no more effect upon them
than II has had upon the weather.
A recent manifesto of the labor party"
declares that "since 1870 wages have In.
creased 81 per cent and the cost of living
Al per cent. Clothing, coffee, sugar and
flour are cheaper: rice, vegetables, milk
meat, fuel and rent are dearer.'
Wages are not equal throughout the
country, as they ought to be If the tariff Is
the main factor in regulating them. As
only one. fourteenth of our people are en-
ployed in protected industries, 1t seems
natural that they do not regulate wages. If
they did, we may be sure that 1t would not
be true, as it is, that the three great protect
ed industries, wooden, cotton and iron, pay
the largest average wages of any manufac-
tures.
Sixth, the free trader fully belieces IN
manufactures. He does not aim to reduce
the country to farms and pastures. He
maintains that without tariff upon
raw material our manufactures would mul.
tiply and prosper. With American inven-
tiveness and education, we could beat the
world in scores of industries which are now
hampered by taxes on the material employ
ed. No nation could compete with us In
farm machinery had we free iron. No ma
ton could begin TO rival us in sewing ma
chimes, or firearms, or portable engines or
locomotives were 1t not for the cost of the
raw material Hardly an industry of the
West which does not suffer from protec-
ton. Moline, Rockford, Aurora, Elgin,
Galesburg, Marseilles, how much do they
make by protection? Compare in Ottawa
the unprotected tile industry with the SO
per cent protected starch industry. Which
has done most for the town? Compare the
" pauper labor" of Marseilles with the pro
tected labor of the La Sale zinc works,
and ask which is most American in spirit.
The free trader is not trying to buiN up
other countries at tie expense Of has o'cn.
He is not necessarily an Anglo-maniac.
He is not necessarily bought up by British
gold" and does not enter into the secrets of
the Golden Club. He Is not so anxious for
foreign goods as for fair trade. Since Eng
land, by fortunate concurrence of events,
has been able to give the world the best ex-
ample of forty years of free trade compar
ed with many years of protection, he nat
urally quotes her example. He remembers
that all of the terrible predictions of dis
aster and ruin which the protectionists of
to day urge upon us, were made In England
in opposition to free trade The free trad. |
srs of England were charged with trying to
build up America at the expense of Eng.
land. Let us not appeal to senseless ma.
tional prejudice to prevent our using the
lessons of their experience. For some sin.
guar reason, the protectionists fight shy of
the possible lessons to be learned from
France, the model protectionist country, |
which has tried protection, universal pro-
lection, longer than any other country in
Europe. Under her influence Belgium
went over to protection for a few years, but
has since gone back with hearty enthusiasm
10 free trade, The dreadful Golden Club
has done very little since it converted Eng
land. It never had funds enough to food
America with documents. $4,000 was the
highest amount it ever expended In year
and that was in the thick of its home fight.
Onl, =, n vaaks 400 az a m eating of alarm !